How Must that Feel?
by ChaosKirin
Summary: A VERY short story, focusing on the end of the episode "On the Road to Find Out."


**How Must that Feel?**

"I propose a race."

"A race, Harlan?" I asked, rolling my eyes. Leave it up to Harlan Band to get competitive when we were minutes away from being blown up. He stumbled a bit under the weight of the female Spung in his arms… Elmira. She was still unconscious, though her eyes were fluttering now and then, and it was likely she would wake up soon. A year ago, none of us would have bothered to look at an injured Spung, let alone save one's life. But Elmira? She was different. Like Radu was different. Like Rosie and Bova and Harlan were different. Like… _I _was different. It had taken a long, unwanted trip from home for the realization to surface – the fact that we were so different, well, it made us the same.

And we were a team.

"Thought you said you could keep up!" Harlan taunted. Already, his pace was quickening. There was no way he could run with Elmira in his arms, though if it got him moving faster, I'd humor him. The sound of the ship's protomix core destroying itself was already far too loud in my ears.

"This isn't a game, Harlan!"

Suzee's translucent blue form ran just ahead of me, urging me on. It was really just a projection of her mind, but over the years, her presence became more and more commonplace that, to me, she was as real as Harlan was. "Let's go!" she snapped.

"I'm coming," I replied.

Harlan mistook the statement as being meant for him. "Not fast enough!"

For once, I didn't remind him that the words were meant for my friend, and not him. The hum of the engines seemed to be coming closer, and it was definitely no time for arguing with him over whether or not Suzee was real.

The floor of the spaceway that connected the Christa with her sister ship was becoming less and less substantial. That was to be expected; the Christa would be breaking off the connection in very little time. Fortunately, she'd do her best to make sure all the crew was onboard before she did so. That was the wonderful thing about having a partially living ship… She was like a friend. She cared for each of us. The fact that the spaceway was dissolving, though, was definitely the motivation I needed to pick up my pace a little. Harlan already won the race, and he would gloat about it later, for sure. Already, he was holding Elmira out for the others to take.

It was really weird. I knew I was going to die before it even happened… The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I _swear_ that my blood was suddenly running cold. I wanted to go faster, but already my feet were moving as fast as they could go. Ahead, Harlan was turning, even as the arm closed around my neck—

"_CATALINA!"_

"Harlan!"

The airlock _closed._

The spaceway was dissolving.

"Oh, god, Cat…" Suzee was staring at me, with an expression I'd never seen before. Fear! But why was she afraid? She wasn't the one that was being dragged toward the doomed starship! She wouldn't die! With this in mind, I started kicking for all I was worth, but Warlord Shank showed no signs of letting me go. It was too late anyway; I could hear the Christa breaking away, her engines blasting powerfully into the coldness of space to carry the crew away from the explosion. The crew, minus one.

And the engines grew louder as I was dragged backwards. It was a deafening roar, as if a thousand tornados were whirling about us… And yet there was no wind. It was eerily still…

The second airlock closed in front of us.

Back on the other ship. The one that was about to explode.

_The noise was deafening! _But for some reason the words that the Spung whispered into my ear were _so_ clear.

"…I cannot have them all, but one will die."

Suzee reached out to me, and I could see that there were tears in her eyes. Both of us expected that, as usual, her comforting hand would pass right through my arm and mean little more that a simple gesture of friendship. In this case, a final gesture, without even the benefit of cold or heat to even signify that we'd touched.

Our surprise was quite real, though, when Suzee's hand did _not _pass through my arm, but rested on it. My struggling ceased, the pending explosion forgotten. How in the names of all the gods has she reached across dimensions?

"Don't stop now," Shank said, the coldness of a bloody victory in his voice. "It makes it less fun for _me._ Though Warlord Shank would love to stick around to witness your final demise, I fear I am about to be… retrieved. So sorry… Catalina, was it? I hope your final moments are… painful."

Suddenly, I found myself on the floor, alone in the docking bay except for Suzee. The fall had knocked the wind out of me, and as I slumped back, comforting arms wrapped around my shoulders to hold me up. 

"The excess electrical discharge from the protomix," she said as explanation. "It would be deadly, except for the fact that we're-"

There was a sudden explosion of noise, and then silence. But I could still _feel _the noise under me, around me, in the very air! They say that when you're meeting your end, everything happens in slow motion for some reason, and it was true. The crumbling walls of the ship, the high-pitched whine of metal failing – a sound which I could only feel – and the huge, white-hot fireball that was rapidly engulfing the entirety of the ship's interior. It would reach me in moments, and I hadn't even gotten the chance to say goodbye.

So hot, it was burning.

Then the sound caught up with me.

At the same moment, Suzee grabbed hold of my wrist and wrenched me to my feet, and suddenly there was no more heat. There was no explosion. But there was Suzee, and she wasn't just _blue._

"Your hair has colors in it," I said stupidly. I'd never seen them before.

She was her usual, confident self, rolling her eyes. "You should talk! Look, we have to hurry before the Christa moves out of my range!"

Then, to my surprise, and with Suzee still holding onto my wrist, we rode the shockwave of the explosion through the emptiness of space…

No, not really. Both my feet were planted on a metallic floor. There was a bed, computers, and Suzee's mechanical dog. I was in her house. But how—

And all around me, was the vacuum of space. 

We were between dimensions, but I could feel myself being pulled back through whatever rift the explosion had created. If I was pulled back now, well…

"We can make it!" Suzee was saying, as if reading my mind. The red wave of destruction was dissipating, though, and we were slowing down. It would wash over the Christa before it did, though!

Her hull grew ever closer, the crimson glow from the destroyed star vessel lighting up the living tendrils that snaked across the surface. The Christa was definitely solid, and there was no possible way anything could pass through. Whomever had built the ship once upon a time made her strong, yes, but there was no denying the laws of physics. All matter has mass and takes up space. Two bodies of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

And the way we were going, we were on a crash course directly for the hull.

"_Suzee!"_

"It's alright!"

It's impossible to imagine, but literally a million things happened in that next moment. Seconds. Not even that! Maybe even less that a second. We hit the hull of the Christa, and though I could feel some resistance, we passed _right through it!_ At the same time, Suzee's grip on my arm ceased, and her hand went through it. We were both flung across the Christa's floor, and rolled several feet before coming to stop at the foot of a stack of crated supplies.

Interestingly, the Christa's interior seemed fuzzy. Blue. I attributed that to the trauma, though; I'd probably ask Rosie to check my head later to make sure I didn't hit it too hard… They wouldn't object. The crew thought I was crazy anyway, since I talked to Suzee all the time. It was almost as if I was seeing Suzee's room more clearly than the ship… And while, at times, the two were superimposed, never had the image of the Christa seemed so weak…

Oh. Yeah.

_I was alive!_ Suzee had done it!

"We… we gotta find the crew! Tell them th- Tell…"

"You're welcome," was her simple reply, though she was beaming. I couldn't tell if it was because of the fact that she'd figured out a way to cross dimensions, or if she'd saved my life. Though I'd like to believe it was the second option, with Suzee, one could never tell.

Really, we would have hugged, except for the fact that we were no longer in the same dimension. Instead, she followed me through the halls of the Christa that I knew so well. The farther I got away from her, though, the less detail appeared in front of me. The reasonable conclusion was that I'd acquired a concussion from the explosion. Easily fixed in the medlab. Easily…

"So, how did you do it?" I asked, curiously noting that even as I was walking, my feet seemed to be stationary.

Then it hit me. Suzee was a bit slower on the uptake.

"Well… when the protomix blew, I knew it would tear the dimensional fabric just enough to pull you through…"

She conversed with the crew, still oblivious. She still didn't realize it, even as I walked through her, to stand directly in front of Harlan… Who didn't even look up to acknowledge that I was there. At least, I thought with some satisfaction, the boy had tears in his eyes.

"Cat! They can see me!"

"Yes, Suzee, I know."

They asked where I was.

"Cat… she's standing right here. Why can't you…?"

I smiled. She frowned.

"Oh, no…"


End file.
